From Riches to Rags Read Online Free Page A

know.” The kitten had begun to bathe when it looked up at me with those huge yellow eyes.
    “No, I can’t keep you. Don’t you understand? I can barely afford food for myself. You’ll starve living here.”
    Her soft brow curved up and her eyes grew large and I swear, she looked like she was pleading with me. She crawled up in my lap and nudged me with her head, and that was it, I was in love. It’s hard to admit, even to myself, and ludicrous to think, but that kitten was my only friend now.
    The kitten had mostly black fur, with a fluff of white on its chest, a patch of white on its nose and paws. I’m not sure exactly why, because I didn’t want to be mean to the cat, but I named her Blackie.
     
    Reporting in Person — Meg Bumgartner
     
    “Is she warm enough? Does she have enough food to eat?”
    Mrs. Livingston inundated me with questions the minute I was shown through the heavy oak doors to their mansion. It was the same questions she always asked me, and I gave her the same answers.
    “She’s thin, but eating regularly, and yes, she’s warm enough.”
    What I didn’t divulge was that Chris ate like a bird on purpose, to stretch her money, and she wore layered clothes while in the apartment, because it was colder inside than out. I feared that she might not have enough heat this winter, as thin as those walls were. I couldn’t tell Mrs. Livingston these things because she would insist on taking blankets and food to her, and as soon as that happened, Chris would know who the benefactor was. Mr. Livingston had warned me of this ahead of time, and though he didn’t ask me to lie, which I have not, he did ask me to ensure that Chris stand on her own two feet, without handouts from Mrs. Livingston or her staff.
    “She’s found herself a roommate,” I said, then quickly explained that it was a stray kitten, not a human who could help with expenses.
    “A pet? She never wanted a pet before.” Mrs. Livingston declared, as if this was some kind of miracle.
    “Yes, the stray had apparently been born in the apartment above Chris’s floor, and fell out the window onto Chris’s fire escape stoop.”
    That was the best assumption I could make up. In fact I had put the kitten there myself. I didn’t want to tell Mrs. Livingston that Chris was lonely, so lonely that she cried herself to sleep every night. I thought she just needed something to love, and something that could love her back, and in a moment of weakness that I don’t regret, I went to the pet store and bought a kitten for her.
    Admittedly I had never done anything like that before on one of my cases, but I also had never watched a subject’s every move for nine months either. I had come to know and admire Chris, and didn’t want to see her fail.
    “Is it diseased? Does it have the mange, or worms, or something horrible like that?” Mrs. Livingston asked, as she shivered at the thought.
    And now we know why Chris never wanted pets. “No, ma’am, it seemed healthy to me.” The kitten had had all its shots at the pet store.
    “How is it you know these things, Ms. Bumgartner?” She asked me curiously.
    I answered her honestly, “After Chris moved into her apartment, I secured a similar apartment across the street from her, and up one floor so that I could see into her apartment.”
    What I didn’t tell her was that I had a pair of binoculars with a camera monitor, mounted on a tripod, aimed into Chris’s apartment. With the two buildings separated only by a back ally, I really didn’t need the binoculars, but it could be programmed to snap infrared pictures at night, so that I could check how she fared while I slept. I had long since lost any awkward feelings when it came to spying on a person like that, it was simply my job, and I am very good at my job.
    But the quizzical look on her face made me want to explain to Mrs. Livingston that I was very discreet about a person’s privacy, and would not divulge, even to the mother, what her